Gone
by iceman817
Summary: A re-imagined scene from Uncanny X-men 544. Two old friends say goodbye. T for language. Minor Dark Angel Saga spoilers. Read and Review.


Slight AU- Dark Angel Saga Spoilers – Bobby knows prior to leaving Utopia what happened to Warren during DAS. I own nothing. Italics are direct quotes from X-men Re-genesis 1

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Gone

"Bobby, we need to talk."

_We want you to all choose what you think is best._

Bobby Drake closed his eyes and sighed as he heaped the last of his duffel bags into the aft of the Blackbird.

_Think carefully, and when you know…choose._

"Kinda busy Scott."

_And rest assured, whatever you decide, neither Logan, nor I, will hold any grudge._

"No. It can't wait."

Scott turned and walked away from his friend expecting to hear the footsteps following him. Bobby started after him, when a hand grabbed his shoulder and held him firmly in place.

"Leave 'im alone, Summers. He made his choice."

Scott turned back and saw Logan staring angrily at him, a hand on Bobby's shoulder. Bobby looked very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"Kid doesn't need ya tryin' to get inside of his head."

Scott stepped towards them, "I'm not sure what you said to him Logan, but the fact that he's standing on your side of the line pretty much points to the fact that he isn't thinking clearly. Now, if you'll let my FRIEND go so we can go and talk, I'd appreciate it."

Bobby gently pushed Logan's hand off of his shoulder, "It's fine. I'll be back in a few minutes. Finish loading up." He passed Wolverine his bag; Logan shouldered it and took one last look at Scott. He sniffed and walked up the ramp of the jet.

Scott had turned away from him once more and began to walk, "C'mon. My office."

A few minutes later, Bobby felt like he felt back when the school first opened and he had gotten in trouble for freezing Warren to his bed in the middle of the night. But now, rather than Charles, he had Scott staring over his desk, fingers steepled, a slight frown on his face.

"What are you doing, exactly?" Scott asked.

"Going with Logan to Westchester. I thought that seemed fairly obvious."

Scott's frown deepened, "The question had more of an underlying 'why' to it. I have functioning eyes, all puns aside."

Bobby snorted, "I think it's the right thing to do. Isn't that what YOU said to do? Choose what I think is best, and do it?"

Scott ran a hand through his hair and looked down at his desk. He didn't want this. He didn't expect this. He had watched one by one as people he called friends walked to join Logan on the jet, and for each of them he hadn't been surprised. He had friction with Rogue since Hope had returned, he knew that there was no way that Kitty would stay on Utopia if Logan left, and the students had no idea what they were getting into. But then, the last to emerge was someone he considered to be his oldest, dearest friend. He had known Bobby longer than he had known any of the others, and now he was walking away.

"Scott?" Bobby asked. "You okay?"

"No Bobby, I'm not. I need you here."

"For what?"

Scott looked up from his desk, shocked, "What?"

"For what?" Bobby repeated, eyebrows raised, seemingly almost as surprised by Scott's statement, as Scott was at his response.

"What do you NEED me here for Scott? You NEED someone to continue to put on the backburner while you put people you've known for less time in the important situations? You NEED someone to do your dirty work for you when it comes to telling off people who disagree with what you've been doing? You NEED someone to be your yes-man when everything that you've done goes against what I believe in? You NEED someone to criticize for worrying about the wellbeing of his teammates? You NEED someone who loved her JUST AS MUCH as you did to sit home and mind the shop while you tried to save her life? You flew Warren in from California dammit! I was sitting right on the couch in the day room!"

"Bobby I-?"

Bobby stood up now and leaned over the desk, "You NEED someone to lie to? You NEED someone to stab in the back because he supported you in EVERY GODDAMN THING THAT YOU DID AND YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE COURTESY TO TELL HIM THAT YOU WERE GETTING HIS BEST FRIEND KILLED?!"

Here it was. The conversation that the two needed to have for a long while, perhaps since the most recent time Jean came back, and Scott still wasn't prepared for it.

Scott leaned back in his chair as if he'd been slapped, "What happened to Warren didn't happen under my watch. If anything Logan—"

Bobby held up a hand, "Don't. You may have not been in the loop, but the path he was on started with you."

"I didn't want him there to begin with! Just like I never wanted you there! You think I wanted him dead?!"

"You didn't help keep him alive."

"Hey! I didn't realize I had to answer to you."

"You don't, but you can't expect me to just sit around and be the good solider to whatever it is you're doing. I'm not going to do that."

"Look Bobby….sit." Bobby eased into his chair, still breathing heavily. "I'm not going to say I've been mistake-free this whole time. We both know I haven't been. One of them cost me one of my closest friends. I don't want another one to leave me."

Bobby nodded. This was the root of it. Scott wanted him around not for what he brought to the table as an X-man, but what he brought to it off the battlefield.

"It's nice to know after all these years I'm YOUR security blanket."

Scott snorted, "Yeah…when the hell did that happen?"

"Probably around the time Hank left." Bobby said quietly.

"You're probably right."

"He's coming out there with us, you know. He called me a few hours ago."

That was a gut check.

Scott smiled sadly, "Can't say I'm surprised…wasn't the idea of being an X-man that he had a problem with."

Scott looked down at a picture on his desk and turned it around. There they all were. Scrawny Scott, Bobby the snowman, non-furry Hank, and a fully living Warren and Jean.

"This is gonna be the first time since you all left after Krakoa that I won't have one of you with me."

Bobby still hadn't looked away from the picture. "That ain't true and you know it."

"Scott, you are the biggest pain in the ass I've ever met. Half the time I want to strangle you just so you shut up, and the other half I want to go on a mystical quest to pull the stick out of your ass. You are my friend, and you are my brother. There will never be a time when you truly need me and I won't be there. Ever."

"What if that time is right now?"

"It isn't. You don't need someone to sit here and tell you yes you're right all the time. You don't need someone to sugar coat the truth and not give you the kick in the ass you need. A, because you won't actually listen, and B, as you used to always tell me, you don't get better by being complimented. You get better by being told when you're wrong and fixing it."

"Since when have you paid attention to the stuff I told you?"

"I'm actually not sure…I guess I never realized I had."

"Right."

Bobby nodded and scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably, "Yeah. Look Scott, it's probably about time that I got out of here."

"Yeah." Scott sighed. "Bobby…I…I just don't want you to leave here like Hank did. When Jean died…she died being disappointed in me. Who knows how Warren felt…if he was even really in there still when it happened. And Hank walked out of that door hating me with every bone in his Bobby. I can't handle you leaving the same way."

Bobby chuckled, "You know me Slim. I couldn't hate anyone if I tried. Least of all one of my best friends. And even though you're an enormous prick…you fall into that category."

"Well…um…good. Then I guess this is it." Scott held his hand out across the desk. Bobby shook his head, stood up, and pulled his friend in for a hug. He grinned a little bit as he felt Scott tighten his grip.

"Only one thing left." Bobby held his friend at arms length. "Tell me how much you love me and are gonna miss me."

"Absolutely not." Scott said trying to pull out of his grasp.

Bobby pulled him close once again, this time much tighter, and began to shake him up and down. "Tell me you love me Summers! Tell me how you're gonna cry yourself to sleep EVERY! SINGLE! NIGHT!"

"Dammit Bobby let me go!" Scott said, trying to contain his laughter.

"We can keep doing this the easy way or I can make it even worse. I'm gonna start icing up in three…two…one…"

"I'm going to miss you! Now let me go!"

"And what else?!"

"I love you!" Bobby let go, appeased and Scott shoved him.

"You're an asshole you know that? If your mission was to get me to want you to leave you were successful."

Bobby tapped his temple, "I've been tactically trained by one of the best."

"Right." Scott pointed at the door, "Now go, you dick." He sat down and began to open the files on his desk. Bobby lingered for a moment in the doorway.

"Hey Scott?"

Scott looked up, "Ye-PFFFFT" He sputtered and coughed as he wiped the snowball off of his face. He didn't get a chance to clean his visor off as he heard his old friend laughing as he raced down the hall.

"I'll miss you too buddy."

* * *

I've had this sitting on my computer for maybe six months and never posted it. I'm typically a fan of the Bobby/Warren bromance as well as the Bobby/Jean big sister/little brother thing but I honestly believe of the original five Bobby and Scott have the most fascinating relationship. I think there's truly been some real organic evolution of the way the two interact and it's always swept under the rug. There was a bit of it in the last issue of Uncanny but it was really underdone and Bobby's little speech about why he left Utopia during the AvX tie ins seemed pretty spot on (I actually wrote this before that came out and I felt pretty vindicated after reading it)

A quick update for anyone interested (though I doubt anyone is): I've been working on the second season of my challenge stories but my feet are dragging on it (I have 4/10 "episodes" done). I'm actually a first semester law school student now so my time to do anything recreational is fairly limited. I'm starting to get ahead of the curve on some of my work so maybe over Thanksgiving I'll bang out one or two more chapters and can hopefully shoot for having it done some time in December. I'd rather delay a long time and put up a finished product than put up half and never get back to it because I hate, as a reader, starting stories that I really enjoy and then have the author lose interest/become wrapped up in life and never end them. And I really love doing the Challenge stories to the point where I mapped out like 9 stories worth on my computer and would genuinely like to knock them out.

Thanks for reading and please review. For oneshots like this I typically try to re-write or else put "deleted scenes" of what I think should've gone down in the comics. So however I'm inspired next will probably be the next one. I was going to do the Bobby/Scott reunion during AvX, but it didn't really make as much sense in paper as it did in my head.


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